Lady, You’re Not Actually Fake

In school, one guy I knew kept repeatedly telling me thatÂ he thought I put up a persona to hide my true self from the world. I never figured out quite what he was talking about, but I think I can tell you with absolute certainty – neither did he. I think mostly it had to do with the fact that I wear dresses (I like dresses) and high heels (I like high heels) and respond to all awkward situations by being back-bendingly polite (“This is a really interesting bukkake party you guys are having! I bet, as bukkake parties go, this is very well done!”). There were a lot of conversations about how he just wanted me to be free. Free to be myself. Free to let my hair down. But not in rollers. I guess because I liked it that way, too much?

It is impossible to convince someone who thinks your true self is hidden otherwise.

So, once the “No, this is me, actually,” route was exhausted, I probably tried to acknowledge that we’re all a bit fake. I probably meant to say something to the effect of “Well, gee, guy, I guess I am afraid to show my true self because of the constraints placed around me, and probably a lot of stuff to do with my upbringing, and also just I’m a very anxious person. I also try to behave in ways that don’t make other people cry! I’m not going to insult a bukkake party someone worked hard to plan just because it’s not my thing! That’s not me! And I like doing my hair in rollers and wearing high heels all the time because I really value things being beautifully done in an old fashioned way, and that, honestly, may have as much do with my obsession with films from the 40′s and 50′s as anything else.”

Since it’s hard to articulate all that, and also frankly, because this guy was really good looking and I wanted him to like me so I could sleep with him (this failed; don’t bother) I usually actually endedÂ up saying “Umm, I guess I’m just scared. For my heart.” Endless talk about how I was “scared” and “self-loathing” and – Jesus Christ. Jesus Fucking Christ.

This is an answer men seem to accept. If you need to know, this is the “right” answer.

That was also the fakest I have ever been.

And you know when you’re being fake. You’re the only person who really does. You will know by the way it makes you feel terrible.

What I should have said was “You are a man saying this as you walk around in a fedora.”

AlternativelyÂ – “Your affectation of authenticity is no different than anything I do.” I should have gotten this printed on business cards.

Patrick just got owned so hard

Ashley wants to know why I didn’t just yell, “Why are you are being a jerk!?”

The part about wanting to sleep with him! And again, this business of “wanting you to be real” is never said as a criticism. The men or women saying it are only trying to help you. So you can be truer to yourself than you were actually being before they came in like a wise fedora wearing angel to help you understand yourself.

Except you’ve already told them who you are. You’ve told them by behaving the way you normally behave. They just don’t believe you. And there is no way in the world to make them. The only way to keep the relationship going and make them happy is to adopt an elaborately fake persona which will make you very, very angry, because no matter how much you are praised for it, you will know it is not how you’d naturally behave.

Don Draper said it pretty well when he noted that “People tell you who they are, but we don’t believe them because we want them to be who we want them to be.”

These people who think you are fake do not think you are lying about your values. They are not saying that you are lifelong Democrat who is pretending to be a Republican to impress someone, and that is going to be problematic. That is something friends of many years can do. They are not friends of many years. They don’t know you well enough for that.

They do think that you’re behaving in a way they’re unfamiliar with, and they would rather you behaved in a way that they immediately understood. They are not interested in asking you questions to figure out your motivations. They are interested in you behaving in the way they want you to behave.

This is dumb. Don’t try to do that. You’ll end up writing some deliberately badly spelt letters about how you’re a fragile Dresden figurine who needs someone to show you the light or something. There’ll be a lot of mixed metaphors in those letters. You’ll keep them in deliberately to make it seem more authentic, and you’ll hate yourself for that most of all.

There, are, of course, specific instances where you’ll behave in a way that goes against what you actually feel. There are a lot of ways that could manifest. You could be an asshole to someone you actually like to seem tough. You could act like a bigot to impress people. Those are legitimate instances of you being an asshole, and your good friends and family will point out that your behavior – in this instance, not as a whole – doesn’t seem consistent with the way you usually behave. (If you’re one of our asshole bigot readers, replace those words with “kind”, “harmless” and “tolerant”.)

In those times, when people you trust tell you you’re being inauthentic, consider how right they are. Who will know if they are right? You will know.Â You hang out with yourself every minute of every damn day. You know your every move. You will know if you are behaving in a way where you are saying things that you really don’t believe to make people like you. If your brain has trouble processing this, your stomach will help you out by producing waves of nausea.

They might be right. And you can tell them if they are or not, and they will trust you on that, because they respect you enough to know that you know yourself (although they might point out that when you say “No, I’m a bigot, now” that that is not a very nice thing to be).

But when someone tells you that you retreat behind a persona and you know that they are actually wrong, well, at the very least, do not worry about that too much. Odds are – and perhaps that is why this is a criticism generally thrown up by people in their teen years -Â they are simply saying “I want you to behave in a way I am already familiar with.” You don’t really have to do that. And if that’s the case, well, you’re not really fake.Â You’re just a weirdo. That’s great. Being a weirdo works out well for a lot of people. It worked out okay for Andy, except for the whole shooting thing. Everyone who was ever interesting was a little bit weird.

You’re not fake. That person just doesn’t like you. They’re probably not going to sleep with you regardless of how well you do a bizarre kabuki dance imitating the sort of person they would like, so just let that go.

They’re gone? That’s okay. You can move on to finding fellow weirdos in the world who will fucking love you.

It’s amazing what you can do when you put your replicant brain to work and your fembot hands to the keyboard.

NOW BRING ME RAW MEAT FOR IT TO BE IN MY BELLY.

Lemona

I’m really saddened by the image of replicants eating raw meat to try to prove to themselves that they aren’t replicants. Is that in the deleted scenes?

Ashley Cardiff

Lemona, this comment is superb.

Melanie the Constant Reader

All of my fascination with reality shows comes from puzzling out what the hell everybody means by “being real” on there. I do not think that word means what they want it to.
I don’t think it means what MOST people want it to, i.e.: permission to act weird but in a socially acceptable way. Can we invent another word for that so dudes with fedoras will stop talking about being real? And NO, the new word can’t be “authentic.” Vetoed.

I agree with most of this! However, I guess I have struggled with this issue more than you have, because I have at times retreated behind a persona to avoid dealing with feelings of shyness, awkwardness, etc. I think this might be why I’m such an “oversharer” re: intimate details of my feelings, life, etc. I don’t want people to have the wrong idea about who I am. And I do try to be relatively the same person, no matter who I’m with. My parents know things about me that most parents don’t know about their kids because of my writing, but I honestly think it’s improved our relationship. Alternate personas can be fun (that’s why I created “Hunter”), but not when you get confused about what’s part of your persona and what’s really part of you. Thankfully, I don’t really have that problem much anymore.

Jennifer Wright

Jamie, who is Hunter?

Jamie Peck

Hunter is my Suicide Girl name. She’s confident and cool, and doesn’t care when people say mean things about her on the internet!

Kacie

I’m with you here Jamie.

LeĂłn

Thanks for making me comfortable of being a weirdo. AND YES!, LETS DEVOUR ALL THAT RAW MEAT!!!

BeccaTheCyborg

This post is fucking magnificent. That is all.

MR

I’ll tell you a story about this woman. She was a total fake. She manipulated me and made me make a fool of myself. I thought she was my friend. You’re real. Don’t let anyone tell you you aren’t.

meteor_echo

Excuse me? What’s wrong with wearing a fedora?

Jennifer Wright

You’re in the rat pack!?

I wish I were in the rat pack.

A lot.

I’d probably be Sammy, though, not Frank. I don’t like that much spotlight.

Will

Limit: 1 per crew

MM

I don’t remember the comic where I read this, but it went something like this: “You think you look like Humphrey Bogart in that fedora, but you really look like a systems administrator with a sword collection.”

I work in IT, so I know the type. As far as I’m concerned the fedora has been ruined by all the men who pair it with a trenchcoat, ill-fitting jeans and white running shoes.

Kj

Well, I had a friend that I have trouble describing as anything but fake. I hated the fact that she put on a completely different persona whenever we were around other people/people she didn’t know as well.

If it was just us hanging out, she was chill and nice and personable and easy to talk to…

…but as soon as someone else she didn’t know as well showed up (read: wanted to impress) it was OHMYGOD LOOK AT ME I AM SO QUIRKY AND AWESOME AND WEIRD! AND NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO HAVE A CONVERSATION BECAUSE I AM GOING TO INTERJECT AT RANDOM WITH QUIRKY INTERJECTIONS THAT PROVE MY QUIRKYNESS AND CHANGE THE SUBJECT COMPLETELY! OVER AND OVER!

(Sorry about so many caps… that was how I basically experienced this phenomenon.)

…It was just like, what the hell? Who IS this person? And you can talk about acting differently based on whether you are talking to your parents or your friends, etc, but this was more subtle, since we were all basically her peer group, yet she treated us differently.

But maybe this is not “being fake…” …maybe this is just treating your best friend like crap because you are deeply insecure, etc.

Jenna

THIS.

THIS ARTICLE.

This is why I read the Gloss. All the damn time. You’rekindofmyheroes.
Does it make me a weirdo to say that? Maybe. I’m not worried, I feel like I’m in good company. I’ll be in my cave, masturbating and eating the raw meat now. K thanks bye.

Will

“You are not alone in a cave, drunk and masturbating and screaming for raw meat to eat, because no one gets to do that regularly except a certain kind of male author.”

Hey, speak for yourself.

Btw, Andy Warhol really was the most genuine of all modern artists, because he freely admitted that his paintings (and all art, really) had no deeper meaning other than being pretty pictures that were enjoyable to look at.

kit

there’s different degrees of fakeness, duh. i myself am known for keeping it real. which is why i’m constantly annoying or pissing people off.

nothingsmonstered

Don’t forget Kurt Vonnegut’s wisdom: “Be careful what you pretend to be, because you are what you pretend to be.” Or, as Andrew Vachss loves to say, “behavior is truth.”

What you do is what you are, and if you don’t act the same way all the time that just means you’re complicated, like the rest of us. It all counts.

kim folwy

Very poorly written blog.

yiraf

Are replicants fake because they aren’t human? Is being human a prerequisite for being real?? Or are only replicants fake everything else is real. What. I am befuddled by my own logical entanglement. That being said I thought Rachel was one of the most real characters in blade runner! I kind of felt bad for her, kind of how I would have felt bad for Robin Williams as bicentennial man but the movie was so bad I couldn’t suspend disbelief.

Anyway! love this article, agree with you, but confused about the last photo because everything did not turn out fine for those people in the picture… unless relative immortality makes everything ok (which it might??)